If you support marriage, make it available to more people and then don't get a divorce. That's my opinion!

Now - having said that... There are many Christian Americans who are caught between a rock and a hard place right now... They love fried chicken, they love to support Christian family-owned businesses but they don't want to contribute to any controversy or feel like they're interfering with anyone's civil rights...

I have a solution for these folks... It's called Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken and it satisfies all of the above and THEN some.
Here's all your questions, answered:

Is it a big corporate chain or is it a small business?
It is a corporation, and yes, they have more than a couple locations. However, they are a smaller business than Chick-Fil-A and are likely to appreciate your business a lot more.

Who owns or runs Lee's Famous Recipe and what sort of things to do they care about?
Their name is the Stillwell family and the charity called Never Say Never is very dear to them. They aim to help people who are disabled participate in athletics (NSNF facebook page).

Do they donate to anti-gay or pro-gay causes?
None that I am aware of...

Are their employees happy on the job?
Yes - their employees seem to think their workplace treats them fairly and the owners are VERY much involved with the day-to-day business of Lee's Famous Recipe.

I strongly advocate that if you MUST eat fried chicken, you want it to taste good, and you don't want to contribute to any controversy - go with Lee's Famous Recipe if there is one near you... They have locations in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Virginia Tennessee, Alabama and South Carolina.

Do you know of an American Family-Owned Business that deserves a little bit of attention? Please tell us about them in the comments section! FloridaSqueezed loves to support small businesses who make and sell their products in the United States!

Back in March, Mitt Romney got a little taste of political success in Illinois. It was a mixed blessing, really, because the politics of Illinois (particularly Chicago) have become a dog whistle to Republican operatives seeking to tarnish Obama's reputation in the blogosphere and social media. While Obama's familial home-base is Hawaii, Republicans have had more than their share of self-induced political misfortune in the Aloha State, leaving them with only Chicago (and sometimes the Republic of Kenya) to alienate in their propaganda. For some unexplained reason, however, Romney's big win in the Land of Lincoln was short on dignity and long on misfired bravado. While Romney isn't known as a "guy you could have a beer with", the Huffington Post/AOL reported that Romney slurred his words and stumbled in laps around his perfectly working teleprompter.

That being said, it is not Mitt Romney's inarticulate moment that I want to call your attention to... I want you to notice what Romney had PLANNED to say... what his entire campaign presumed to be fit for the scrolling screen in front of their candidate. It's no "gaffe" that I'm sounding the alarms on here - it's what the so-called "Believe in America" troupe actually believes about America. Ironically, it was the following sentiment that Mitt Romney spoke clearly without stuttering:

"I have had many business successes and failures over the years. Each step of the way, I learned something about what it is that makes our American system so powerful. You can't learn that by teaching Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago."

This is a direct quote from a victory speech that the Romney campaign crafted and Mitt Romney read aloud from a teleprompter after an Illinois Republican Primary win. Not only is it rather unbecoming of any professional to mar a victory speech with unnecessary character attacks against their eventual opponent, but it's also very telling that Romney and his campaign chose this line of attack to commemorate their small victory in Illinois. Mitt Romney knows that our President's achievements are far greater than his few years spent as a civil rights attorney and college professor. Although Romney is 15 years older than President Obama, he received his Business Degree from Harvard University where Obama would ultimately become Editor and then President of the esteemed Harvard Law Review.

More egregious than the implied insult and elitist dismissal of both the President and the University of Chicago, is Mitt Romney's contempt for Constitutional Law itself. In Mitt Romney's world, the almighty dollar makes the world go around and there's no place for "governmental intrusion" in the private sector. It is this lack of ethics that has led Mr. Romney into trouble throughout his various attempts at political office. He has personally signed his name to the dotted line allowing American jobs to disappear into foreign sweatshops. He has hidden the majority of his income from taxation - ultimately depriving the United States of the only dues he owes to this great country. He has sought to convert the United States Government into an agency that conducts its affairs with his best financial interests at heart. He has built his entire campaign for the Presidency with insults and personal criticisms, all the while avoiding the requisite details to explain his own positions on important matters.

These transgressions are not just the mark of a bad politician... They are cowardly and selfish. They are bad for America. These immoral actions might be "business as usual" to someone like Mitt Romney, but small business owners and employees who pay their taxes and respect the laws founded in our Constitution will not likely adhere to Mitt Romney's myopic view of America as his personal ATM machine.

Mr. Romney never got around to explaining exactly "what it is that makes our American system so powerful". Hopefully, whatever it is, it will be used to help us all in our journeys toward freedom, independence and peace. We know it's already been used for quite the opposite purposes at times.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

UPDATE:Jennifer Carroll has written an apology to Floridians for her remarks. The FloridaSqueezed blog accepts Mrs. Carroll's apology and respects her ability to admit a mistake... It is this blog's policy not to remove content save for extreme error but the reader should know that Carroll has done her best to smooth things over since this post was written. - J.T. This update 07-27-12 Original post: 07-18-12

Florida's Lieutenant Governor, Jennifer Carroll recently made a comment that the Huffington Post passed off as "awkward" (video) but which were actually the height of utmost offense for someone in her position to utter. Here's her quote:

"The problem is that when you have these types of accusations that come out, it's not just one person that you're attacking. You're attacking an entire family... My husband doesn't want to hear that... He knows what type of woman I am and my kids know what type of woman I am.
I am the one that's married for 29 years. My accuser is the one that's single for 29 years... a long time (smiles)... So... (nervous giggle and flits hair) Usually black women who look like me... We don't engage in relationships like that. (nervous giggle turns into cackling)."

In the State of Florida, gays and lesbians are not only forbidden to marry, but under 2008's Amendment 2, they are not even allowed to have a Civil Union. Florida's Republican-led legislature is so obscenely homophobic that the subject has become a point of contention in politics around the globe. For the most part, black leaders have stayed out of gay rights issues or they have been helpful in changing the dialogue. Mrs. Carroll has done quite the opposite here. This also serves to highlight the fact that Florida Republicans have a LOT of gay skeletons in their closet... so the idea that she might have had some brush with homosexuality is hardly out of the realm of possibility.

The Lt. Governor has insinuated that black women will only "engage" in lesbian relationships if they are lonely or unwanted by men. She has gone further in touting her own beauty, implying that she's too attractive to fall victim to lesbianism. She refers to "accusations and attacks" but these statements (up until now) have been neither.

Lastly, her statement is grossly offensive to white people as well. Why? Because you can't claim that BLACK women are able to control their sexual orientation and make moral choices without implying that WHITE women are unable to do so.

Jennifer Carroll's ideology about race and sexual orientation would leave us open to make these kinds of judgments about her based only on her appearance... would she think this was fair?

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Representative C.W. Bill Young has held his place in Florida's Congress since 1970... That's about a decade before most of my friends were born... Old age has really done a number on this man's mental state because he finds himself unable to view "wages" as payment for work... He thinks that "wages" are something he's expected to "hand out" like freebies and pay for with his taxes... (More craziness, after the video.)

Watch the video here:

Let's not be ageist and pick on old Bill though... Many Florida Republicans lack a firm clutch on reality. We have a Republican Congressman who thinks that Democrats are all secret communists, we have another one who thinks that 11-year-old rape victims were "dressing like prostitutes", and yet another one who thinks that "midget tossing" is the first issue his constituents want him to put forth in the legislature...